Youth center to host 'tough talk' motivational speaker

Wade Young was once one of them — the minority, at-risk youth he so desperately wants to save.

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By Pat De Mono

recordonline.com

By Pat De Mono

Posted Mar. 15, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Pat De Mono
Posted Mar. 15, 2013 at 2:00 AM

IF YOU GO:

What: Right Choices,Inc. presentation

When: 4:30 p.m. March 19

Where: Port Jervis Youth Community Center, 134 Pike St.

Price: Free; donations welcome

Visit: rchoices.com

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IF YOU GO:

What: Right Choices,Inc. presentation

When: 4:30 p.m. March 19

Where: Port Jervis Youth Community Center, 134 Pike St.

Price: Free; donations welcome

Visit: rchoices.com

» Social News

Wade Young was once one of them — the minority, at-risk youth he so desperately wants to save.

Bullied and never quite able to fit in, Young dropped out of high school in Stamford, Conn., midway through his senior year and took a job as a warehouse worker at Dress Barn. It was there he began a journey of redemption that would ultimately lead to his life mission.

Young spent 33 years at Dress Barn, returning to school along the way to graduate summa cum laude with a degree in business management. He climbed the ranks, "elevating and changing with the company," he says, to eventually become its first African-American to hold an executive-level position.

The years at Dress Barn — "an organization that was close-knit and family-oriented," says Young — was a training ground for the life work awaiting him at retirement in 2012.

Drawing from memories of a troubled childhood and emboldened by years of self-assurance and business savvy, Young founded Right Choices Inc. in a bid to intervene and effect change in the lives of at-risk youth.

The nonprofit organization is dedicated to "motivating, influencing and challenging our youth to make life-changing right choices against drugs, gangs, violence and teenage pregnancy," according to Young.

"I knew I had something to say," the organization's founder and president says, "and I knew it could make a difference."

Now living in Middletown, Young is committed to bringing "tough talk" to youth organizations and clubs, in hopes of setting troubled youth on a path toward "self-respect, self-esteem, and self-worth."

He will speak at the Port Jervis Youth Community Center on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

John Faggione, longtime Director of Recreation for the City of Port Jervis, says anyone who comes to the Youth Center at that time will be invited to attend the Right Choices event.

Faggione says Young's message is one that can benefit all youth. "I think his organization can do a lot of good things for a community like ours."

Young's tough talk addresses a plethora of social ills that plague today's young people.

"The lack of male involvement in the lives of their children" is a major problem, he says. Right Choices, he says, is "trying to be a voice where maybe there is none. We're trying to instill a foundation of values where maybe none has been instilled. We're saying things to our young men that maybe they haven't heard before in terms of their character and behavior."

Although Young's message is pertinent for all, he is particularly concerned for minority youth.

"We're losing our minority men every day," he says. "We're losing them in the prison system. We're losing them to death."

Making wrong choices, says Young, can start with not getting an education, which limits options in life. "You hit the streets, hit prison, then the graveyard," he says.

"Upstanding and positive behaviors, increased self-esteem and a healthy, respectful appreciation for life," says Young, "begin with making right choices."